Noodle
by Chima
Summary: Life's rough, so stick by your friends.  T for language.


Well this is odd.

That was the first thing that crossed his mind when he opened his eyes and found Trunks sprawled across him: the weirdness of the situation. Next came the aches and soreness. Every fiber and nerve in his body screamed at him to just fall back into blissful unconsciousness.

Sure, why not?

But just as his eyelids drifted shut they snapped back open as he remembered exactly where he was. Or rather, didn't. Against his body's wishes he forced himself up and out from under Trunks, trying and failing to stand and ending up half-lying on his best friend again. His head flopped over to rest on his other shoulder as he looked around, completely unable to place the vegetation around him. The rock formations that could be seen through the trees' canopy were a mystery as well.

As Goten tried to stand again and Trunks groaned as he was jostled. "Don't go...Come oooonnnnn..." the last word was drawn out in a sensual purr and Trunks made much better of moving than Goten had, grabbing the black-haired boy around the midsection and burying his face against his stomach.

Even ignoring that, Goten had no problem moving once Trunks started grinding against his leg.

"Gross, man!" Goten managed to scramble to his feet, only to find that Trunks was still attached to him. Even mostly unconscious, Trunks managed to keep his grip as Goten tried to pry him off. "Let go of me, I'm not one of your friggin bunnies! WAKE UP, DAMMIT!!" A heavy clout to Trunks' head sent fireworks of agony up his arm, but managed to bring Trunks around.

"FUCK!" Trunks swore in pain and all but collapsed again, sliding off Goten like a limp noodle. He ended up in a half-sitting position, first running his hand through his lilac hair to gingerly touch the bruise already rising there and then bringing it down to scrub the sleep from his eyes. A low stream of obscenities hissed from his lips as he touched the slightly older bruise over his left eye.

Goten sat - or rather fell - down next to him. Everything was still fuzzy, but he knew at least roughly how they'd gotten there. It happened all the time; it would start with some petty little argument that would burn quickly into a full-on shouting match, and end with them beating the shit out of each other until they both passed out from exhaustion and/or physical trauma.

Goten prodded his arm and found at least two extremely painful sections that may or may not indicate a broken bone. "Great...thanks a lot, Trunks. I'm gonna have to spend three days in a cast thanks to you."

"Speak for yourself. I think you broke my _everything._" he kicked Goten like a pouty kid, hissing in pain a moment later.

"Whiner."

"Crybaby."

They glared at each other for several moments before a smirk - so like his father's - broke out on Trunks' face. A moment later Goku's grin appeared on Goten's, and they broke down laughing. Just like every other time they were completely fine with each other, problem resolved - or at least forgotten. Who says violence doesn't solve problems? At least between Saiyans.

"Sooo...where are we?" Trunks asked as he looked around.

"You're asking me? Trunks Briefs, who reads the dictionary for fun, who memorizes contour maps, who probably started this argument is asking me where we are?"

"Hey, that's not funny. You get to spend a hell of a lot more time outside than I do," Trunks grumbled. "Your mom's not trying to train you to be some sort of corporate executive."

"Yea, she wants me to be a nuclear physicist," Goten rolled his eyes. Trunks burst out laughing and Goten snapped, "What's so funny?"

"Just picturing you with your brother's glasses and wearing a white coat, off in some lab somewhere...probably destroying the building by dumping francium in the sink..." Goten punched Trunks in the shoulder, then grimaced in pain. "Wimp."

"Nerd."

"Seriously though," Trunks pushed himself to his feet. "Do you know where we are?"

Goten gave a half-hearted look around, now that he was fully conscious it looked vaguely familiar, but then shrugged. "We'll have to get up into the air. Flying'll be better than walking like this, anyways." He was already lifting into the air as Trunks nodded, and soon they found a highway with plentiful signs that could let them argue over where the hell they were. After several minutes of easy flying and minor bickering they stopped midair.

"I gotta get back to the dorm, mom'll tear my head off if she finds out we did this again," Goten sighed. "She doesn't even give a damn about the fight, it's all just the fact I'm not back there studying."

"Yeah, I'm sure you get a lot of studying done even when you are there. Your grades say otherwise," Trunks chuckled.

"So sue me for not wanting to be some lab geek like you, Trunks," Goten made a face and stuck out his tongue.

"Screw you."

"You would if I gave you half a chance, you fuckin horny rabbit. Get it out of your system before we get together next time, I do _not_ enjoy waking up to you grinding on me because you think I'm one of your bunnies!" he pointed an accusing finger at Trunks, then sped off toward his dorm before Trunks could come after him.

"At least I'm not repressed!" Trunks yelled after him, then smirked and headed back in the opposite direction, toward Capsule Corps.

Twelve hours, four classes, two finals and one way-too-long medical examination later Goten was lying on his lumpy dorm mattress, trying to fall asleep. He sighed and shifted on the bed, trying to get comfortable despite the air conditioning-deprived heat and his twitchy muscles. Nearly all the minor cuts and bruises from his and Trunks' fight were healed over with nothing left behind but nearly-invisible scars that would disappear by tomorrow. Then there was a sharp _ping_ at his window and Goten put his pillow over his head.

"Go _away_, Trunks. I've got a headache, it's too hot, and I want to _sleep_," he mumbled through the pillow, knowing that Trunks would hear anyways.

"Tough shit. It's a full moon. Get your ass out here."

"Not this month, man, I'm too goddamn tired," he growled through the pillow, biting his lip. That would explain the twitchiness; even though he couldn't transform he always felt charged with energy at the full moon. Usually he and Trunks would spend the entire night out partying until one of them - usually Goten - got into a fight or - usually Trunks - found someone to take somewhere private and expend the nervous energy on. Either way the other had to drag them off before they hurt the person too seriously. "Don't you have some bunny to roll around with?" Goten always called Trunks' many girl- and occasional boy-friends 'bunnies' because there was rarely any real attachment, instead nothing more than lust and they humped like rabbits every chance they got before moving on. Seeing your best friend bent backward over a counter getting a blowjob isn't the most pleasant thing to walk in on when you're just looking for a midnight snack.

"We broke up. Come _on._" Trunks' voice was right next to him now; how the hell had he gotten in so quietly? Then Goten was being bodily lifted out of bed - sheets and all - and out the window.

"Trunks--let me go---"Goten squirmed, trying to get out of his friend's grip, but it was useless. There was no stopping Trunks from doing near enough anything on a full moon without physical violence. "For crying out loud, my _pants!"_

"I'll buy you new ones," he answered, not caring in the least he'd just hefted a mostly-nude Goten out of bed. Ironically the cast on his arm was the most substantial piece of clothing he was wearing.

"Man, there's no parties going on tonight, everyone's either cramming for tomorrow's finals or dying of brain cancer from today's. There's no point in going out. _And put me the fuck down!_"

"Fine," Trunks dropped toward the ground and landed in an alley, at least having the mind not to land in the middle of the street. Then he grabbed Goten's wrist and dragged him stumbling over the sheet out to the sidewalk and into the first store that might sell clothing they came to.

"Spencer's," Goten said emotionlessly as he looked around him at the random objects barely illuminated by the blacklights and strobing flourescents. "I should've known you'd pull shit like this."

"Excuse me, we've got a clothing policy..." the girl at the counter trailed off when she got a better look at Trunks and Goten. Trunks was standing there in his usual dark grey baggies and black tank, twitching and tapping his foot as if he and Goten had much more important places to go. He tossed his head to push his long hair out of his eyes, not seeming to even notice that it fell right back into place. Goten on the other hand was clutching the sheet to him with his good arm, barely managing to keep hold of it in the breezes caused by the various small machines running in the store.

"Look, blame him!" Goten jabbed a finger at Trunks. "He's the one that dragged me out of bed at this ungodly hour!"

"Just pick out some clothes and be done with it," Trunks bristled, still twitching.

"Where are your pants?" Goten whined to the register-girl, who looked about to slap him until she realized what he meant.

"In the back, opposite side of the store," she pointed, blushing. As he darted back she looked from Trunks to Goten and back to Trunks again, raising an eyebrow. "Are you guys...?"

"Don't go there." Trunks grumbled, crossing his arms.

"Have I mentioned yet how much I hate you, Trunks?" Goten walked out from the back of the store a few minutes later wearing baggy black leather pants criscrossed with chains and apparently made solely of pockets stitched together. A blood-red tshirt proclaimed 'you say I'm a sinner, I say I know how to have fun'.

"Pretty extreme for you, Goten."

"This is _tame_ compared to some of the stuff they have back there!" he practically cried. "So unless you want me in assless chaps and nipple clamps--"

Trunks raised an eyebrow.

"JUST PAY THE WOMAN!!"

Trunks slapped a fistful of crumpled bills down on the counter - another thing he'd never do any time but the full moon - and dragged Goten out of the store. "So who's having a party tonight?"

"Trunks, I just _told_ you. There's no parties tonight. It's finals."

"So what're we gonna do?" he asked, looking at Goten as if this had all been his idea.

"We? _I_ wanted to sleep! Why don't you go to some strip club and pick up a bunny and go somewhere with her!"

"Will you quit saying shit like that?!" Trunks growled between clenched teeth.

"It's true, you're with a different person every _week!_"

"At least I can get a girl, and not be stuck moping over some chick who dumped me for another _girl!_" Trunks snapped back. Even years of fighting and the moon heightening his senses didn't give him enough warning to dodge when Goten grabbed him by the collar with his good arm and slammed him against a brick wall.

"Don't _ever_ say that again." Goten's face was inches from Trunks'.

"It's true," he mimicked Goten's words of only a moment ago. "She did leave you for a girl!"

"Well what happened with your latest girl, Evie, huh?" he tightened his fists, lifting Trunks onto his toes. "Did you get sick of fucking her? Dump her so you can jump back to guys again, get fucked in the ass a couple of times before dumping them too?!"

Trunks' eyes flashed and for an instant his ki spiked, turning his eyes teal for a millisecond before he forced his energy down again. He said in a voice of strained calm, "If we're gonna fight, we have to get out of the city." Goten didn't answer, just half-tossed him to the side and stalked off down the street. He hadn't gone ten feet before driving his good hand into the brick wall up to the middle of his forearm. "Look...I'm sorry. That was a really sucky thing to say."

Goten drew his arm from the wall. "...Me too. It's the moon." He gestured vaguely up at it without turning back toward Trunks. "I just...it makes me so mad. Like everything's just trying to worm its way under my skin and piss me off. And it works, too. Everything's...red. It's like I'm lookin through those weird sunglasses you had a while back." Trunks knew the pair he was talking about, the ones with red lenses and silver frames he'd bought on a whim a couple years ago. "Even you. My blood's boiling, my heart's beating way too fast, and I feel like I'm gonna jump out of my skin if I try to sit still." He held up his hands; they were shaking. He immediately clenched and dropped them again and started walking off at a brisk pace.

Trunks jogged up next to him and matched his stride. "I know what you mean. It's the same with me. Why else do you think we always fight most around the full moon?"

They walked in silence from there, eventually taking flight and drifting around each other in the sky. Soon they found themselves up above the clouds, laying back against their shifting wisps as if they were more substantial than air and staring up at the moon.

"What happened with Evie, anyways?" Goten asked quietly. Any sound seemed too much up here.

Trunks was silent for several minutes, and Goten had just begun to wonder if he'd heard him when Trunks answered, "She wanted more than I can give her."

"But you guys got on so well."

"It was all a show. She knew it from the start, too. One of those things you hope'll change. But...I just didn't feel for her, ya know? She finally realized I didn't and probably wouldn't ever, and she got pissed." He smiled, and a broken chuckle escaped him. "Ironic how you'n me probably have enough power between us to destroy the world, but we gotta just sit and take it from these girls. She yelled at me so bad, and she can hit damn hard too," he rubbed his cheek, and slowly the smile slid from his face. "And...then the moon rose."

"Fuck, Trunks, you didn't..."

"No, I didn't hit her. Came so damn close, though. Way too close."

_"I gave you everything, and all that matters to you is if I can get you off!"_

_"You know it's not like that--"_

_"Yes it fucking IS! You knew from the start this wouldn't go anywhere, and you led me on!"_

_"I didn't lead you on! You knew exactly the same!"_

_"At least I tried to make it work! You just sat back and enjoyed it while I did my damnedest to unfreeze that rock you call a heart!"_

_"I tried--"_

_"Bullshit, no you didn't! It was always me that called you to go out somewhere, the only time you ever asked after me was when you wanted to loosen your pants!"_

_"Evie, I--"_

_Silvery light through the window, like a glowing, pupilless eye watching them. "Don't you 'Evie' me! You don't deserve to even _talk_ to me! You weren't willing to do anything--"_

_"I TRIED! DON'T YOU GET HOW GODDAMN HARD THIS IS FOR ME?!" His fist came up, clenched so tight his knuckles were white, and for an instant he almost drove it straight into her face. But the instant was there and over faster for any human to register, and instead his fist crashed through the tiles over the sink next to him._

_"GET OUT!"_

_"Evie, I'm sorry..."_

_Her palm came around, leaving a red mark on his cheek. "GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HOUSE BEFORE I CALL THE COPS!"_

_"Please..."_

Smack._ "GET-THE-FUCK-OUT!"_

"I came to get you after she kicked me out."

After a few moments Goten spoke. "Man...these girls are such bull. Waste of our time."

"Guys are a little better, they whine a lot less," Trunks joked halfheartedly.

"Yeah, but they don't have the nice curves like girls do," Goten smiled over at Trunks, tracing his hands in an hourglass shape in the air.

"It's a different kind of..." Trunks trailed off.

"What?"

"You really can't compare girls and guys. It's like trying to compare...I dunno, a spatula to an apple. If you nitpick then there's similarities, but they're just too fundamentally different."

"Obviously. But what were you gonna say?"

Trunks actually blushed. "It's...It's a different kind of beauty." Goten quirked his eyebrows in confusion. "Girls are all curves, smooth and liquid, almost. But with guys...Everything's angles and planes," his eyes went unfocused as he tried to find the words. "Girls are soft, on your eyes and in your hands. Guys are harder, like they're made out of liquid steel. Even the smell's different. Girls' scent's subtler, like walking past a garden on the street. But a guy's is sharp and _there_ like coffee in the morning. It'll stay on you for _days_, and everyone'll know." he laughed full-out, and Goten knew exactly what he was talking about. Sometimes just from walking by Trunks he could tell who he'd been with the night before. If it was a girl the smell would wisp around him, barely there but through everything, and might even cling a little to him as he walked past. If it was a guy then it'd be a sharp tang that stuck to Trunks' skin like glue. "And the way they act...don't even get me started on that. Girls seem like they always want to take care of you, and want you to protect them and all that. But with guys, it's more level ground. Sometimes it ends up with a lot of fights, because they pull the macho bull and expect me to be all feminine and kiss their ass." That cocky smirk again, aimed at the sky. "But other times...it just fits better, cuz there's less to explain. A girl will ask you how your day went, what you got up to. But a guy'll just...know. Cuz he went through it too. There's exceptions of course, like Videl being a tough bitch and Krillin a pansy," he laughed. "But...that's just how it seems most of the time."

Goten just stared at his friend for a long time. "Is that how you see me?" he blurted, and Trunks snapped out of his reverie to look at him. The blush came back.

"S-sort of...I mean, fighting is a lot like sex if you think about it," he grinned sheepishly and the blush deepened. "Maybe that's why we're so screwed in the head, we get the two confused, and people end up thinking we're fucking each other." Goten gaped at him. "I mean, not that they _do_, it's all metaphorical, after all. And it's...fuck...uh..." he stood, his feet going through the cloud and breaking the illusion. "It's the moon!" he pointed suddenly at the moon, and Goten automatically looked.

"What?" Goten's face was twisted in confusion as he looked back at Trunks. "That didn't even _start_ to make sense."

"The moon's screwing my head over...always does. Doesn't it do it to you too?" he asked, pointedly changing the subject.

"All you ever said it did to you was make you horny and jumpy."

"Why do you choose _now_ to have a decent memory?!"

"Always happens at the worst times," Goten laughed. Trunks joined him, and when it trailed off they were lying on the clouds again. "Hey...did you ever wonder...you think we could make it to the moon?"

"What do you mean? Dozens of people have landed on the moon--"

"No, I mean you and me. Could we fly that high? Get all the way to the moon, then keep going till we get to the stars?" Goten's face had a soft smile on it, and his hand came up to trace a constellation. "And then what? Where would we go after that?"

Part of Trunks wanted to be his usual, logical self and say they couldn't fly to the moon without a ship; they'd suffocate and implode in the vacuum of space. But the moon was full, and neither of them was themself when its light shone down. And Goten's face was so peaceful as he held his hand up, a little smile on his face when he closed his fingers around the moon as if he could take it home with him like a child with a shell from the beach. "We'd go across the galaxy."

"Then what?"

"Fly to all the others, and see what's there."

Goten carefully lowered his hand, keeping the illusion that he held the moon. "And then?"

"Go to the end of the universe."

"And what after that?" He wasn't even looking at Trunks, too enraptured by the illusion. Then he opened his hand and released the moon back into the sky, not even noticing Trunks was watching him.

"I suppose...we'd go all the way to heaven."

"I'd like that."

"Me too, Goten." He put his hands up too to play with the stars. "Me too."

-----

no, there's no reasoning behind the title. I couldn't think of one, so I put down the first word that came to mind.


End file.
